The University of Michigan will withdraw from hosting a presidential debate in October, two people familiar with the school’s plans said Monday night.
The university is pulling out of hosting the second presidential debate, scheduled for Oct. 15, because of concerns about bringing large hordes of national and international media and campaign officials to the Ann Arbor campus amid the coronavirus pandemic, the people said.
Two people directly familiar with the debate planning said the Michigan gathering will be moved to Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, which hosted the first debates of the 2020 Democratic primary season last summer.
The Detroit Free Press first reported Michigan would withdraw from hosting the debate.
The move, expected to be formally announced on Tuesday, comes as President Trump has sought to alter the debate schedule, add a fourth debate to the planned three and exert more control over the selection of moderators, which is typically handled by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonprofit organization that sponsors presidential general election debates.
The campaign of Mr. Trump’s opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., has rebuffed his proposals, dismissing them as a “distraction.”
Rick Fitzgerald, a spokesman for the University of Michigan, declined to comment on the school’s plans.
Presidential general election debates cost their hosts millions of dollars, sums universities typically raise from their own large donors in order to bask in the prestige of hosting an event that draws international attention. But with the coronavirus pandemic stretching budgets and making large gatherings of students and donors on campus not viable, some of the value in hosting a major debate may be lost.
The debate is set to become the second major presidential campaign event to move to Florida after officials elsewhere raised concerns about large gatherings being safe during the coronavirus pandemic. After officials in North Carolina, including Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, sought assurances that delegates would adhere to social distancing at the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, the Trump campaign announced that Mr. Trump would instead accept the G.O.P. nomination in Jacksonville, Fla.
In a letter on Monday to the Commission on Presidential Debates, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, asked for information about what protocols debate hosts would put in place to assure the safety of the candidates, moderators and attendees.
Ms. O’Malley Dillon also wrote that Mr. Biden was committed to debating Mr. Trump on Sept. 29, Oct. 15, and Oct. 22, and that his yet-to-be-selected running mate would take part in the vice-presidential debate scheduled for Oct. 7.
“Our position is straightforward and clear: Joe Biden will accept the Commission’s debates, on the Commission’s dates, under the Commission’s established format and the Commission’s independent choice of moderators,” Ms. O’Malley Dillon said in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times. “Donald Trump and Mike Pence should do the same.”
“Any ‘debate proposals’ in lieu of that are just an effort to change the subject, avoid debates, or create a distracting ‘debate about debates,’” she added.
The details of the letter were first reported by The Washington Post.
The letter came four days after The Times reported that top aides to Mr. Trump had held an online meeting with officials overseeing the debates, in which they pushed for a fourth debate between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden and argued that the events should take place sooner than planned in order to accommodate voters wishing to cast their ballots early. (Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly and falsely claimed that mail-in voting is rife with fraud.)
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, was in the meeting and also proposed a system allowing both campaigns to recommend a set number of moderators and then strike some of them from their opponent’s lists until an agreement was reached.
In her letter, Ms. O’Malley Dillon noted that the Trump campaign’s position was a shift from months earlier, when the president’s advisers were discussing whether Mr. Trump would take part in debates sponsored by the commission at all. “The Trump position seems to be saying that he will debate if he can pick the moderators,” she wrote.
The commission, which has produced the general election debates since the 1988 campaign, typically spends months negotiating the details with representatives for the candidates. The group did not respond to a request for comment.
The Trump campaign’s proposal for an extra debate came as a wave of recent polls showed the president trailing Mr. Biden both nationally and in key swing states, suggesting that Mr. Trump’s advisers viewed the debates as a possible turnaround opportunity.
“An earlier and longer debate schedule is necessary so Americans can see the clear difference between President Trump’s vibrant leadership and Biden’s confused meandering,” said Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman.
Ms. O’Malley Dillon said in her letter that even if the coronavirus remained prevalent in the months ahead, she hoped that the second debate — originally set to be held in Michigan — would follow a town-hall-style format as has been customary in recent years, enabling voters to ask questions of the candidates directly.
“We know that voters have many, many questions for the president,” she wrote.
Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
